Petr Gertsen

Life & Legacy

Peter Alexandrovich Herzen (May 20, 1871 – January 2, 1947) was a Soviet surgeon, doctor of medicine, healthcare manager, and professor. He was also one of the pioneers of oncology in the USSR.
He was the son of the Swiss physiologist Alexander Alexandrovich Herzen and the grandson of the Russian publicist, writer, and philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen.
Herzen was the head of the Department of Operative Surgery at the 1st Moscow State University from 1919 to 1921, the head of the Department of General Surgery at the First Moscow State University from 1921 to 1934, the head of the Department of Hospital Surgery at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute from 1934 to 1947, the director of the Institute for the Treatment of Tumors from 1922 to 1934, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1939), an Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1934), an honorary member of the French Academy of Surgery, a member of the International Society of Surgeons, a member of the Higher Attestation Commission, the chairman of the boards of the All-Russian and All-Union Societies of Surgeons from 1926 to 1928 and from 1935 to 1936, and chairman of the XXI (1929) and XXIV (1938) All-Union Congresses of Surgeons.
After his death in 1947, the Moscow Research Institute of Oncology was named after him.